There is a community meeting set for Wednesday to take public input on the new stretch of road that will replace the piece of Paseo del Mar that collapsed in San Pedro’s 2011 landslide. (Chuck Bennett / Staff Photographer)

There is a community meeting set for Wednesday to take public input on the new stretch of road that will replace the piece of Paseo del Mar that collapsed in San Pedro’s 2011 landslide. (Chuck Bennett / Staff Photographer)

Traffic topped the list of concerns as engineers met with more than 100 San Pedro residents this week to talk about the project to reconnect a portion of Paseo del Mar that fell into the ocean during a 2011 landslide.

The desire for “traffic calming” measures — speed limits, stop signs, speed bumps and the like — was voiced by several who attended the two-hour informational session, according to those who organized the meeting.

Bike lanes are planned for at least one side of the road.

Hilton Yee, who heads up the engineering team from AECOM, the firm that has a $2.5 million contract with the city to design and plan the east-west scenic roadway that runs atop a 120-foot-high ocean bluff, conducted the meeting along with city engineers.

The area collapsed on a rainy Sunday afternoon, dumping some 600 feet of Paseo del Mar into the ocean.

There were no injuries in the landslide that engineers later said was the result of long-standing cliff erosion and a buildup of too much underground water.

While some residents in the area preferred that the road not be reconnected due to safety, traffic and noise concerns, a task force appointed in 2013 by Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino recommended that the road be rebuilt.

The planning work to reconnect the road is only in the preliminary stages and planners have yet to identify how to pay the estimated $28.8 million it will take to re-create the missing section of road between Western and Weymouth avenues.

A retaining wall will be added to the top side of the cliff to add stability.

Possible funding sources include grants and state or federal funding.

Other questions revolved around the possible impacts of the coming El Nino that has been forecast to bring heavy rains this winter. There will be close monitoring and the rains could provide a good test for site stability. Anchors and drains that have since been installed, officials said, should handle any additional stress caused by the rains.

No significant movement has been detected on the property since the landslide, officials said.

A preliminary design report is expected to be finished either in December or January. The road would not be finished until sometime in 2018 at the earliest.

Donna Littlejohn has covered the Harbor Area as a reporter since 1981. Along with development, politics, coyotes, battleships and crime, she writes features that have spotlighted an array of topics, from an alligator on the loose in a city park to the modern-day cowboys who own the trails on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. She loves border collies and Aussie dogs, cats, early California Craftsman architecture and most surviving old stuff. She imagines the 1970s redevelopment sweep that leveled so much of San Pedro's historic waterfront district as very sad.

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